Pashto Poetry – Hamza (Shinwari)Baba

Please read this and other articles at the new blog www.khapiray.com

direct link to this post : http://khapiray.com/pashto-poetry-hamza-shinwaribaba/

 

I might be a late bloomer, but i have just tonight picked up a book* about Hamza baba and i think im totally in love with his poetry!! Here is some of his poems i have just managed to read from the very poor and tiny pashto text that for a beginner is just about legible, though the book is more about his whole life and just a few poems quoted here and there.

[* Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari : life and works by Prof. Dr Qabil Khan]

Ma kooza warta lemah kra, zema sar ne teyteida, shayid chi pe ulfat kei hum afghan patey kedam.
I lowered my gaze, but did not bow my head, perhaps even in love i was going to stay an Afghan (Pukhtun).

Talah da newar asman ta lara, ma chi da sta husan da newar sara talelah!
The pan of the sun (in which it is being weighed) went up to the sky, when i weighed your beauty against it.

Wai aghyar chi da douzakh jaba da, zeba janaat ta da pukhtu sara zem!
They call it the language of hell, but i shall enter paradise with my Pashto!

La pe afqa da pukhtunkhwa hum zaleydaley na yum, ze agha newar yum da afaqa chi rakhataley na yum.
I have not yet shown on the horizon of Pukhtunkhwa, i am that universal sun which has not risen.

Chi shepei kala rah shewama shi, pe dei wakht zema pe zre  kei shur paida shi
chi rana la dunya lara shi rukhsat shi, de shair da zre dunya ta rana shi.
In the dead of the night when the deep silence reigns, a loud noise rises up in my heart;
when light departs the world and darkness falls,  light comes to the inner world of the poet.

Ma wei chi de odu koum ba pe zema chaghu weekh shi, malomah shewa ma ghag karei wu khubulu ta pe khub kei.
I though i would wake up this sleeping nation with my calls, i found that i have been calling a sleepy people in dream.

Bal yaad ba sta da yaad depasa kala rashi mata, da yow da aks da pasa na wi bal pa aeena kei.
Except for that thought of you, how can another come to my mind, when there can be no reflection in a mirror atop the one that is already there.

Chi jewand gran dei ka asan dei khabar na yum, khu takal da asani ye la mushkil kai.
Whether life is difficult or notm i don’t really know, it is only further compounded by the urges of comforts.

Following are pashto translations by Hamza Baba of Allama Iqbals poems from  his book javednama, translated from urdu to pashto.

Da chi waim da bal jahan bayan dei, rakuz shewei da kitab da bal asman dei.
That i say is a story of another world, a book descended from another sky.

Hungama warkygi zema na dei jahan ta, nawei rang warkeygi dei zemakei asman ta
bal Adam zema da khawrei na paidakeygi, marghei warkeygi  da ghulam da sauda ow zan ta.
Give excitement to the world from me, paint anew the earth and sky,
create another adam from my clay, kill this slave of profit and loss.